The politics of the skills strategy

It has been a few weeks since John Hayes unveiled the consultation, ‘Skills for Sustainable Growth’, and the lack of mainstream media coverage may have disappointed him.

November 2010 will be remembered for the beginnings of the student riots; a reaction to the Coalition’s announcements on tuition fees and Higher Education funding. With many sixth-form students taking to the streets in protest against the cost of their future education, Mr Hayes will take comfort that the anger is directed at HE reforms as opposed to his sector, considering that he has implemented a 25% cut in FE funding over the course of the current Parliament. Undoubtedly Skills Minister, Mr Hayes and his colleague, Universities Minister, David Willetts, will be quietly content that the Liberal Democrats are being blamed, due to their volte-face on the issue. In fact, the Skills Strategy reflects many of the same principles underpinning the HE reforms, as well as the wider Government reform agenda.

The main similarity with the HE reforms is a reduction in Government funding coupled with learners (as well as employers) contributing financially to their education. This philosophy has driven the creation of the Lifelong Learner Account, through which learners will be able to access funding, including loans, to be repaid on similar terms to the proposed new HE loans system. This Account will be complemented by the new all-age careers service, aimed at improving the information currently available to potential learners to enable them to make better choices about their careers and the skills that they need. This is all driven by the belief that the responsibility for funding and providing skills should be a three-way partnership; between Government, business and the learner (i.e. all those who benefit from the training).

This pushing of responsibility onto learners and business is aligned with the Conservative and Liberal belief in decentralisation and hostility to bureaucracy, which is also central to the strategy. By scrapping many of the Leitch-inspired targets, implemented by Labour, the Coalition aims to make sure funding and training provision follows learner and business needs. Not only is this an ideological point, it allows the Government to add this to the list of changes they have made across Whitehall to reduce the deficit. The Conservatives have long argued that centralised schemes like Train to Gain are inefficient, and effectively waste money that could be better targeted; Labour take this as an excuse to cut funding.

Freedom, Fairness and Responsibility were the three words on which the Coalition agreements were based, and these principles are also the three pillars upon which the Government wish to build the FE sector. How fair the new funding system will prove to be; how much responsibility business which actually take; and how much freer the changes will make providers, is as yet unclear. However, in terms of politics, the Coalition have the upper hand. John Hayes is a well-respected figure, with a long-standing expertise in the sector, and a clear political message set out by the strategy. Opposing him is the Labour Opposition, proud of its own record, but without a clear narrative for the future. Labour is attacking the Government on cuts to training programmes like Train to Gain and the Education Maintenance Allowance, but they are at the beginning of a long policy review process; it will take some time for the party to re-evaluate its position and attack the coalition for something other than funding cuts.

The Coalition has largely avoided negative press for its funding cuts, and has laid out a clear narrative of where they want to go with FE – and that is towards a less bureaucratic, cheaper system, with shared responsibility. To keep detractors at bay, ‘Freedom, Fairness and Responsibility’ will have to prove more than just a slogan and will need to deliver results.

Ian Tennant is a public affairs and corporate communications consultant at Fleishman-Hillard, the PR agency